It was during what would prove another crushing defeat that a possible solution to Liverpool’s problems earlier this season would first present itself to Brendan Rodgers
His side were playing away to Basle in the Champions League, in a game they would lose 1-0, and Liverpool’s manager noted a change in the Swiss side’s tactical approach that he believes emerged quite by accident.
On the night it was reported that the loss of Basle's left back to injury after only four minutes forced Paulo Sousa to switch to a back three, with an attacking midfielder in Derlis Gonzalez coming on to replace the unfortunate Behrang Safari.
But Rodgers would note how Sousa would grow increasingly impatient with Gonzalez’s reluctance to cover the right-back position, instead choosing to push forward and fill the space previously occupied by a right winger now being forced to play more centrally.
Essentially, Basle began to employ a 3-4-3 formation and Rodgers flew home with his team that night – defeated and more than a little disappointed by his team’ s ineptitude – thinking how difficult that particular tactical approach was to play against.
It was not the way Rodgers did things. In the comprehensive 180-page dossier Rodgers has written on how a football club should be managed – a document he shared with Liverpool’s American owners when he was interviewed for the job and one he circulates to his most senior members of staff – his philosophy is built around 4-3-3 and the 4-4-2 diamond formation. Dating back to taking his first steps in coaching at Reading’s academy, it was how Rodgers wanted his teams to play.
But Basle's approach that night remained in his thoughts, even if things would get an awful lot worse before they got better.
He would first experiment with a back three against Newcastle a month after that encounter with Basle, and it would not prove terribly successful. Liverpool would lose 1-0. One report would describe them as toothless, with much of the blame directed towards Mario Balotelli.
The controversial Italian has proved a major disappointment to his manager. Rodgers had signed him out of desperation after losing Luis Suarez to Barcelona. He thought he had Alexis Sanchez but the Chilean wanted to live in London and opted for Arsenal instead.
The move for Loic Remy had fallen through over concerns for the player’s health. So Rodgers was faced with going into a Champions League season with a rather fragile Daniel Sturridge and Rickie Lambert. He took an expensive gamble on Balotelli, and lost.
Before signing the former Manchester City and Inter Milan striker he spent three and a half hours with him in his office, explaining both to Balotelli and his agent what would be expected of him.
He talked him through what Rodgers describes as his CORE principles. Commitment, Ownership, Responsibilities, Excellence. He explained in more detail what each one means. How a player had to take ownership of his role and responsibility for his own destiny.
He scribbled a picture of a man with a crown on his head; because everyone is the king of their own destiny. He explained that the application of these four principles was the way to achieve consistency, comparing it to the role of a neuro surgeon whose fifth operation of the day needed to be every bit as good as his first.
But Balotelli wasn’t listening, and the lack of respect Rodgers feels Balotelli has shown Liverpool is why he will not be at the club next season.
His failure to follow even the simplest instructions has been a huge source of frustration. Rodgers believes in playing with intensity and pressing high up the field. ‘Hunt and suffocate’ he calls it. It is essential the striker pressers high. But Balotelli would not make those runs and would not even be in position to lead a counter attack when Liverpool won the ball.
The nadir for Rodgers would nevertheless come in Balotelli’s absence. The 3-1 defeat at Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park in late November. Lambert would lead the attack but his team remained desperately poor. Defensively they were awful. Rodgers was starting to come under serious pressure, and he was embarrassed that his team was so far removed from what he felt he represented.
He locked himself away in his office for the next few days, occasionally calling his staff in to discuss what he was thinking but essentially working through the problem on his own. One night he was up at 3am, making himself tea and toast before scribbling down his thoughts.
The plan he came up with needed to be executed in two stages. He knew he first needed to steady the ship by slowing things down and employing a bit of experience in players like Kolo Toure. Liverpool picked up some results as a consequence. They beat Stoke and Leicester City.
But the idea was to use that 3-4-3 formation he had seen in Basle with Raheem Sterling providing the pace – and with it the ability to press – at the pinnacle of Liverpool’s attack.
Against Manchester United – the team Liverpool meet again on Sunday - it actually worked better than the scoreline suggested; a thumping 3-0 win for Louis van Gaal’s side led to more unflattering headlines for Rodgers but the Ulsterman saw enough to be encouraged. Had David De Gea not been quite so outstanding in United’s goal, Sterling might have made more of an impact than he did.
That defeat by United, on December 14, would prove the last Liverpool have suffered in the Premier League and a turning point in their season. It was also the day Rodgers dropped Simon Mignolet and he began a series of one-to-one sessions - something he does with all his players – that would enable his goalkeeper to return both more confident and with a better understanding of what his manager required.
With results quickly improving the team would evolve, with the decision to put Emre Can – a player essentially signed as a midfielder – into his three-man defence one Rodgers felt would address certain flaws that remained at the back.
Now reflecting on a six straight games without conceding a goal, it has proved something of a masterstroke but one that was not as ambitious as some might have thought. When they were scouting Can both Rodgers and his staff had seen the German play in defence; indeed Rodgers had even seen reference to it in Pep Guardiola’s book.
If Rodgers takes pride in Can, he derives a real pleasure from the development of Jordan Henderson; the midfielder whose emergence as a midfield leader is making the imminent departure of Steven Gerrard that much more palatable for everyone on the red half of Merseyside.
Soon after Rodgers arrived at Liverpool an offer came in from Fulham for Henderson. Rodgers had a duty to tell him and recognised that, yes, after a difficult first season at Anfield he might secure more regular first team football at Craven Cottage. But he also told Henderson that, if he stayed, he would make him a better player.
Rodgers likes British players and he does not buy into the idea that they lack the technical ability of their European counterparts. He thinks tactical awareness is the problem, and he blames the weather as much as anything because tactical coaching is difficult in the winter months when players just need to keep warm.
With the academy staff Rodgers has already addressed this with the club’s nine to 16-year-olds. They now have the second half of December and January off but remain at the academy right through to mid-July, when the weather is more suited to slowing things down and teaching kids what Rodgers calls the ‘tactical concepts’ properly. Simple but very clever.
A bright man, Rodgers is also tough. His career has rocketed at a time when he has had to endure much heartache off the field. He lost both his parents and had to support his son, Anton, through two Old Bailey trials.
The moment in Court One of the Old Bailey just before the verdict, when the QC suggested Anton hand his personal belongings to his parents in case he didn’t leave with them, will forever haunt Rodgers even if his son was eventually acquitted.
Perhaps such challenges in his private life enabled him to apply a bit of perspective to the professional difficulties he encountered earlier this season.
But Rodgers is methodical and meticulous and the way he worked through those problems is arguably more impressive than the unexpected success he enjoyed last season when his team finished second in the league to Manchester City.
It’s a tired description of a manager but he is a student of the game who most admires the innovators like Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff; who reads as well as writes and updates a managerial manual based on ‘one vision, one club’.
He swears by Dr Steve Peters, the sports psychiatrist who provides support that he recognises a manager simply can’t give his players. And he is so focused on delivering that elusive first Premier League title for Liverpool that an offer from Manchester City this season would almost certainly be rejected. Only if he thought the title was beyond Liverpool’s reach would he even contemplate leaving.
He dreams of one day managing at a World Cup. Perhaps even for England. But not at 42. Not for another 20 years. Not when he is enjoying the job he has as much as he does.
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